


but as it is, and it is

by tnevmucric



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Memory Loss, eddie is an author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-21 06:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21070514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: “have we met?”, eddie asks.





	but as it is, and it is

_The softness felt crude. The mastered art of averting ones eyes had become something of a permanence in his character, it didn't matter how many times a tender look flew his way, no matter how many times Jamie wondered aloud what would become of them, Matthew kept his eyes down and continued to trek through the ankle-high mud. It was better this way, without the softness... and yet in a few moments he is bumping against Jamie again, reviving their banter as they start to stray from the group._

_ ... And later, when Jamie leans down to tie Matthew's shoelace, Matthew can't really think of any one particular thought. This sight, so daunting and raw, so unobtrusive yet unavoidable, the sight of what they'd become, had burned its way into his every day life and had become a semblance of home. For the rest of the hike, he keeps a fair distance between them, choosing instead to walk ahead with the leader of their small group. He closed his eyes as he pushed through the marsh, as habits such as avoidance were cruel and harsh things to break—it was to be better this way. It had to be._

The day would be over soon, Eddie Kaspbrak thought, smearing his thumbprint over the sharpie lid as the crowd outside of the bookstore were let in. This day would be over in a few hours, and he could go home, slide into bed, and be dreamless for the rest of the night.

It had been a strange few months, unclear and so unlike his settled routine that had kept him company over the past 20 years. There were now sharper turns to navigate, choices that seemed to matter more than they ever had and thoughts he doesn't remember having suddenly open for revisiting. He's recently taken to replaying the day he'd come home from the store, so suddenly invigorated, so strangely buzzing with fear and joy, ready to tell his girlfriend that they were better off as friends.

The conversation had been difficult and he'd called her mommy twice.

As a teenager asks him to write out a quote on the hardcover, Eddie remembers the lone smell of cologne that had caused him to uproot his life those months ago, forcing him coincidentally out of his writers block. The memories (if you could even call them that) came in desperate waves, small and sharp hits that he had to piece together with whatever context clues his own brain or environment provided. It had led to an awful trip across New York where his mother and aunt had raised him, the visit only feeding into a hellbent desire in him to beg for Myra back, to chase normalcy again—his mother tried to convince him so, but later worried herself sick with rampant searches on developing signs of dementia in men in their mid to late 30s. _I raised you here, Eddie-bear!_ she had cried, fanning herself to no use. _And you don't remember a thing?_

Eddie didn't, and her house had felt empty, his teenage bed not quite right and his leftover school books filled with the handwriting of someone else. So he'd left in faux-haste, a promise of visiting again leaving himself and his mother reeling.

He bought the cologne. The woman claimed it was a classic, that her first boyfriend had worn it and every boyfriend after that. Eddie finds it reminds him solely of having not lost his virginity in someone's dark and crowded room, but instead having listened to Cher's new album because _we have to appreciate the classics while they're around Ed—_

Eddie thanks the person in front of him politely, signs their name with a grateful tilt of his head, and passes the book along. The cover is duck egg blue, embellished only with the title. He found himself not feeling proud of the story, as he had been with past ones (the strange becomings of one injured chickadee, the gruesome killing of a young sailor, the handsome tale of a shy chimney sweep who burned his hand at the hearth of a fire), but his editor had convinced him otherwise, and the story had become something like a tulpa, growing only stronger in his memory the more it was in the public's eye.

A mans hand slides a copy of the book onto the table, with short trimmed nails and no jewellery whatsoever, and Eddie tries his most friendliest smile, uncapping his marker and flipping open the cover.

"My readers are usually younger."

"Disappointed?"

"Pleasantly surprised." The man looks like he might loathe smiling with his teeth, dry lips thinly stretched shut. "Who do I make it out to?" The man only waves a dismissive hand.

"I don't need my name in a book."

He has a strange way of saying that, and Eddie's not sure he really understands the implication, but he lets it slide, signing his own name neatly on the title page. He's very tall and wears a loose denim jacket_—_he's far too thin, Eddie worries. But not on purpose. There's a faint dimple in his right cheek.

"Being closeted in the 80s", the man then says, somewhat roundabout. "You really nailed it on the head."

"You too, huh?" Eddie slides the book back. The man's smile becomes a little more foolish, features relaxing.

"Is it funny if I tell you that reading your book reminded me I was gay?"

"You're kidding."

"Nope." Maybe he wasn't ashamed of his teeth, but rather unable to read and react to the waters of an interaction until he was able to establish what persona the person he was speaking with desired. He leans casually, grin easy and hand flat on the table as one animatedly waves. There's a glimmer in his eye, the glasses perched on his nose lacklustre with their muted frame, as if they should be bolder and outlining the intent of his gaze. "You'd think I'd remember the crippling internalised homophobia but apparently that slips your mind quicker than some Uncle Josh banana peel gag. I was the full gay stereotype, including the whole in love with your straight best friend trope_—and_ awful sex jokes about women to hide the fact that guys were hot."

Eddie's laughter, though abrupt, feels warm and keeps close to his chest even when he stops. The man seems jovial, now. Pleased.

"How'd you even come by my book, then?", Eddie asks. The man shakes his head.

"Oh, my agent is_ nuts_ about you, told me I should read your newest hit in the hopes that it might melt my ice cold heart", he winks. "I was originally just going to get her a signed copy as a _'thanks for putting up with me'_ gift, but things turned out differently, I guess."

"So did it?"

"Melt my ice cold heart?"

"Yeah."

The man thumbs at the pages of the book, and Eddie takes a moment to register how worn it actually is, dog-eared and all.  
  
"I don't know", he muses, staring at Eddie. "I kinda feel like I was there in a way. Gay amnesia aside, reading your book made it feel like I'd forgotten a whole lot more, but that I was also coming back to it... that's what writing is though, right? We're meant to evoke something. That's all it is. I suppose it did melt my heart a little."

"We? You're a writer?"

"Comedian." There's something humbly embarrassed about him now, fingers coming up to fiddle with his hair. "I only know how to laugh."

And he does laugh, and there is something about that laugh that has Eddie's eyebrows furrowing. The comedians smile flickers slightly.

"Have we met?", Eddie asks.

"No", he replies, then glances behind himself. "Sorry, I'll let you get back to the rest of the line."

"You're sure we've never met before?"

The comedians smile is back, more gentler than before, and he holds the book to his stomach. The shirt under his jacket is the same colour.

"I'm sure. It was nice meeting you, Eddie."

_Don't call me that,_ Eddie thought as the man walked away, a young woman taking his place and immediately launching into a spiel about chapter 15 and why Matthew didn't just kiss Jamie. _Call me Eds, call me anything else, just don't call me Eddie._

He feels his shoulders pull up against himself, hands close to his chest at the sudden intrusive thought. _Eds, Eds_—he hated nicknames. He _loathed_ nicknames. He never knew why.

"Mr. Kaspbrak?"

As if he'd been withheld in a perfect limbo, a sister to a hypnotic session, his façade snaps back into place; charming and friendly, he comes off as an endearing poet when he reaches out to take the woman's book, signing his name with a flourish and explaining to her, in a quiet chuckle, that not all stories were romantic for the sake of physical intimacy and service.

He forgets about the comedian.

_In death, Matthew thinks he could have hated him. This neither bright nor dark character, one who wore unfitting khaki shorts and tall tube socks, one who never cut his hair and chose to wear it in a horrible mess instead. He felt like a friend from childhood, easily recalled over brief Sunday-morning coffees and trips home during Christmas time—in death Matthew might want to hate him, to blame him for not keeping them together, for associating him with wicked wiles of children stolen into psychiatric asylums where the nightmare world is fated and where pain becomes the only worthy adjective to use. You are nothing but an insane clown, Matthew wishes he'd said, when he had the chance, to this ghost of a young man; you know nothing except how to laugh._

_And I miss you every day._


End file.
